Musical Based on 1970s Classic Comedy Movie ‘Animal House’ in the Works

I’m thinking of starting a betting pool: take a list of 200 or so popular movies, have everyone pick ten, and whoever picked the one that is made into a musical first wins the money.

After all, it seems like every Broadway season brings a new musical adapted from a classic movie, especially since the runaway success of Mel Brooks‘ The Producers. Some are great (Spamalot), some crash and burn (Brooks couldn’t pull it off again with Young Frankenstein), but it seems like a given that Broadway producers will keep trying. Heck, there is a Rocky musical and a Back to the Future musical in the works!

You can now add Animal House to the list. The classic 1978 college comedy classic, which is to be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw with music by late 1990s pop-rock band Barenaked Ladies, with Michael Mitnick writing the libretto.

Nicholaw has experience directing and choreographing shows based on movies — he directed Spamalot and Elf, with the former being much more successful than the latter — and originals, including co-directing and choreographing Broadway’s current biggest hit The Book of Mormon. Mitnick has written the plays Spacebar and Sex Lives of Our Parents, but this will be his biggest project of his career.

I can’t say this would’ve topped my “Movies That Should Be Made Into Musicals” list (I would’ve never picked it for my nonexistent pool), but I imagine that since off-color comedies like Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon have been very successful in recent years Animal House makes sense. Of course, what’s the point if the producers can’t get the rights to Shout, Shama Lama Ding Dong, and Louie, Louie?